Obama and Congress move to address VA firestorm

Published 9:12 pm, Saturday, May 17, 2014

VA Undersecretary Robert Petzel had said he would remain until the Senate confirmed a replace-ment, but a department official says VA Secretary Eric Shinseki asked Petzel to leave immediately.

VA Undersecretary Robert Petzel had said he would remain until the Senate confirmed a replace-ment, but a department official says VA Secretary Eric Shinseki asked Petzel to leave immediately.

Photo: Cliff Owen / Associated Press

Obama and Congress move to address VA firestorm

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WASHINGTON — The Obama administration and Congress are moving quickly to respond to a growing political firestorm over allegations of treatment delays and falsified records at veterans' hospitals nationwide.

The top official for veterans' health care resigned Friday, and House Republicans scheduled a vote for Wednesday on legislation that would give Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki greater authority to fire or demote senior executives and administrators at the agency and its 152 medical centers.

The actions came as federal investigators visited a VA hospital in suburban Chicago to look into an allegation that secret lists were used to conceal long patient wait times for appointments. Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., meanwhile, called for an investigation into reports that schedulers at a VA medical center in Albuquerque, New Mexico, were ordered to falsify patient appointment records.

“What's needed is a total refocusing of the VA on its core mission of serving veterans — stretching from its top political leadership all the way through to its career civil servants,” Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said Saturday.

Citing news reports that VA managers received performance bonuses even as internal audits revealed lengthy wait times for health care, McCain said top VA officials too often have been “motivated by all the wrong incentives and rewards.”

Reports of long waits for appointments and processing benefit applications have plagued the VA for years. Officials have shortened benefits backlogs, but allegations of preventable deaths that may be linked to delays at the Phoenix VA hospital have triggered an election-year uproar. A former clinic director said as many as 40 veterans died while awaiting treatment at the Phoenix VA hospital, even as hospital staff kept a secret appointment list to mask the delays.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said Shinseki's “reticence to hold fellow bureaucrats at the VA accountable is exactly why we need new leadership that is willing to take swift action to ensure we are living up to our promises to our nation's heroes.”

Cornyn is among a handful of Republicans who have called for Shinseki to resign. During a hearing before the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee on Thursday, Cornyn urged Shinseki to investigate allegations by a former VA scheduling clerk in San Antonio, Austin and Waco who claims he was “directed by supervisors to hide true wait times,” the Washington Post reported. Cornyn also asked Shinseki to look into reports by an Austin-based physician who said the VA failed to act on his recommendation for chemotherapy for a VA patient who died after nearly two months without the treatment.

Problems also have been reported in Wyoming, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Missouri, Florida and other states.

The administration and Congress are taking steps to reassure the public that problems are being addressed.

Robert Petzel, the VA's undersecretary for health care, had been scheduled to retire this year but instead stepped down Friday. Petzel had said he would remain until the Senate confirmed a replacement, but a department official said Shinseki asked Petzel to leave immediately.